Atheism, Evolution, Skepticism

Don McLeroy: Creationist, Head the Texas State Board of Education

[via The Bad Astronomer] Texas governor Rick Perry has appointed a Don McLeroy (creationist) to head the Texas State Board of Education. If you want to read some of Dr. McLeroy’s opinion’s on creationism, he has put his ideas on the web (put out in 2003) – showing that not only is he a creationist, but he’s willing to put himself out there and fight for it. It’s sometimes fun to shoot down creationist arguments, but I have to wonder how useful it is. I think for most creationists, the arguments for creationism aren’t foundational to their belief, but they are justifications for their beliefs. In other words, if you knock down someone’s foundation for belief, you might stand a chance of convincing them to change their viewpoint. On the other hand, if their arguments are merely justifications for creationist belief, then knocking them down won’t do much good to convince them – those arguments are just there to give them an air of objectivity. More likely than not, McLeroy believed in creationism long before these pro-creationist arguments ever crossed his mind, so knocking them down will just set him back to where he was earlier: believing in creationism without any arguments for it. (That’s not necessarily useless, and it’s important to show other people the vapidness of creationist ideas, but he’s not likely to change his ideas.)

Anyway, some laughable arguments made by McLeroy: “All fossils to date have been either ape or man.” (see Talk Origins: Comparison of all Skulls, which shows that creationists can’t agree among themselves which ancient skulls are human and ape), and “It is a tautology … The survivors survive.” (my rebuttal)